


Dead Flowers

by Kharaden



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, F/F, Light Angst, Recreational Drug Use, Smoking, getting drunk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 09:04:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kharaden/pseuds/Kharaden
Summary: The girl glanced sideways and Violet was caught in eyes of bright amber. She barely even registered her round cheeks, spotless dark skin, plump lips, and the strands of hair hanging over her forehead. It was as if she was hypnotised by the flickering of a fire on a cold evening. An angel in overalls.“Hey there,” the girl said, tone soft like a Virginia songbird, and smile softer still, “I’m Clementine.”Violet's car breaks down; a rather fortunate turn of events.Violet is a struggling student, and Clementine a struggling mechanic. The essence of life, is struggling together.





	Dead Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. This one's been in the making for a while, and I intend to make a good few chapters out of it, if it's well received. 
> 
> I apologise for the length, but I couldn't find a point in which to take a chapter break that flowed, so, hopefully you can bear it. Next chapters should be more engaging now that the setup is through.

 

**21:46 – Sunday - August 19 th 2018 **

"Min- Minnie... I don't understand…"

Tears glossed over her green eyes. Minerva's words echoed through the room, spoken softly, yet Violet heard each like a scream. There was a surge of thunder Violet's core, yet nothing but numbness in her bones, her breath frozen in her throat. Time itself had been thrown off its axis, as if all existence was waiting for Minnie to cast out a giggle, and reveal the whole ordeal as a joke.

But all existence wasn't waiting. Violet was waiting.

Alone.

Minerva was perched upon Violets bed with shimmering blue eyes, but a solemn expression. Her lean legs where folded, ginger hair blazing in the dim light of Violets room, like star wrapped in the shadows surrounding them. Yet there was no heat ebbing from her. To Violet, Minnie wasn't even there.

Violet was alone.

"Vi... I could sit here for hours, days even, and it wouldn't be long enough for me to explain how much this hurts me... but we can't- we can't be together. It wouldn't be fair on either of us. If I want to go to the Royal Academy, I'll need to move to London. We just... won’t be able to make it work." 

Each syllable shocked the air of the room like a gunshot, each torn from Minerva’s throat as if her heart was rejecting what her mind was formulating. Her watery eyes glanced upwards, staring through the tension of the room and meeting Violet’s face. The blonde girl looked shell-shocked, as if her mind had been wiped clean, and everything she thought she knew was just a mirage dancing before her, deceiving her. All she gave up for the girl in front of her, given up for this. For fuck all.

The responding silence to Minnie’s explanation made this all the more devastating.

“Vi…” tried Minnie, the all too fond nickname shattered to pieces by the break in her voice. The strong face she tried to present couldn’t survive her self-induced grief, crumbling down as she choked out a sob and the tears flowed.

“Violet, I’ll always love you. Even if it feels like the complete fucking opposite is true right now, this isn’t the end, just a respite,” Minnie said. Her voice was weak, empty.

“Violet,” she pleaded, “Please say something… anything…”

Violet’s aloof eyes surged with a fervour, focusing on the figure upon the bed.

The traitor.

“Leave,” she growled, the vitriol in her voice shocking Minnie into a stunned silence.

“Vi- “

“I told you to fucking _leave!_ ” she screamed, springing to her feet. Seizing the last vestige of Minevera’s heart, she tore it to shreds. Her breathing heaved like volcano about to erupt, as with one word she vanquished all the love they had ever shared.

_Leave!_

 

**03:21 – Monday - October 8 th 2018**

Violet shot up from her nightmare, that fateful word ringing through her ears like the roar of thunder.

If only that’s all it was. A reverie, not a recollection.

But she knew that wasn’t true. It would never be true. Her skin rippled and burned under the heat of the cold sweat emanating from her. Dull eyes scanned the black of the room.

It looked just like her dream, but colder, like a corpse long dead and left to rot. Unburied, unbridled heartbreak.

And just as she felt in her dream, she was alone.

Violet, once again, cried herself to sleep that night.

 

**07:30 – Monday - October 8 th 2018**

Violet’s phone moaned a dirge as the scheduled alarm sounded. A groan escaped her lips as she buried her head deeper in her pillow and squeezed her eyes shut. Her head was bogged down by the lack of sleep she had gotten, as per usual caused by the memories that the night dragged into her dreams.

The next few minutes were a vain attempt by Violet to force her body into sleep, but she was a light sleeper, and the still present buzzing of her alarm assured her she was awake for good.

“Goddamnit,” she said as she sat up, rubbing the sleep and the dried tears from her eyes. Extending her arm from her bed to her bedside table, she clicked the alarm off then hauled her lithe body from the bed.

Manoeuvring discarded clothes and empty soda cans, Violet pushed the door open and made her way to the bathroom. She felt a sharp chill as her bare feet padded across the frozen tiles on her way to the mirror, flicking on the light switch as she passed to breath some life into the dormant room. Putting a hand at each side of the porcelain skin, her skin almost indistinguishable from the smooth, white surface. Violet raised her eyes to stare at the shade in her reflection.

Her mother named her ‘Violet’ because of how vibrant she was, even as an infant fresh out of the womb.

If only her mother could see her now. Her Violet.

Violet’s short blonde hair, ragged, knotted and in desperate need of a salon visit. The light green her eyes once held had been replaced with a dim swirl of colour like looked like veins of tulip cut from the grass. The bags under her eyes where a monument to all those haunted nights. Her lips hadn’t formed a real smile in so long she doubted they still could. The husk standing in the mirror was no Violet, yet she was getting used to seeing said husk every morning of the last two months.

Violet tore her eyes from the parody in front of her and pulled the t-shirt she slept in over her head, stripping off her boxer shorts, and in a quick motion turned on the shower and stepped inside. She welcoming the heated water, sighing as it washed over her, hoping it could purge the memories of her night from her head. This simple chore had become the favourite part of her day, the only time she could finally get some warmth into her bones. It was artificial, fleeting. It wasn’t the warmth she truly desired, but it was better than nothing.

 

**08:01 – Monday - October 8 th 2018**

Within approximately half an hour, Violet had showered, gotten dressed and eaten, with a small amount of time dedicated to fiddling with her phone and gazing out the single window of her apartment. Meadows of dull clouds blanketed the sky, the faint orange blaze of the West Virginia sun sparkling through, illuminating the dull buildings of the town below in a shy light. After a brief search through her bag, ensuring everything she needed for the day was there, she strode out the door of her small apartment, briskly walking to the stairs. Violet was by no means an athletic girl, but she only lived on the 6th floor, and she couldn’t live with herself if she wasted time on an elevator for six floors.

Not that it didn’t tempt her every morning.

“You need at least _some_ exercise each day, Vi,” Minnie used to say, with that beautiful smirk on her lips. Violet pushed that voice from her head with a grimace, like it was some vulgar thought. She had spent the last two months convincing herself that she wouldn’t give her everything to hear that voice again in the flesh. But her everything was nothing. She had already given her everything. It got her Jack shit in return, yet it didn’t stop those burning thoughts haunting her.

The human mind has a funny way of purging those recollections, burying them as if putting them in storage executed them, maybe to convince itself that there were no ‘good times’ and this empty feeling is the way it’s always been, rather than an ugly aftermath. Yet all it took was something as simple as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or a bad dream, to stir those thoughts from slumber.

Engulfed in the her thoughts, Violet hadn’t even realised that she had descended all 6 floors and pushed herself through the lobby door until the Autumn winds yanked her back down to Earth. Violet glanced around the damp and lonely streets that surrounded her.

Ericson’s was never going to win an award for ‘Greatest town in West Virginia’. Litter was peppered throughout the sidewalk like snowflakes with a dealer on every corner, the strangers would sooner shoot themselves than lend you change for your groceries, and the restaurants may as well be biohazard zones. In spite of this, it was home. When she moved here to escape the grasp of her parents, she found a suitably cheap apartment and enrolled in the town’s only collage. She found the place charming, in a way. The kind of charm that frightened most, but Violet found alluring.

Burying her hands in the pockets of her favourite jacket, worn and frayed, Violet braved the cold wind, speed-walking down the street until she reached the door of her shitty Ford Fiesta. The silver paint was scarred and dented like a veteran’s flesh, and it fit in perfectly with the rest of Ericson.

Cheap, aesthetically awful, and was liable to break down at **any** moment.

Throwing open the door and dropping herself inside the cramped vehicle, feeling like a caged animal, Violet inserted the key into the ignition and attempted to start the car.

 _Attempted_.

After twisting the key five times, and each time being scolded with a violent sputtering cough, worry ensued. She did _not_ need this.

“C'mon you miserable dick, start for God’s sake,” she swore. She pulled the key out and ran a hand through her short hair, inhaling deeply. She mentally fortified herself for what would be her final attempt before throwing in the towel, like a soldier about to charge through the frontline.

She inserted the key once more, and turned it once more.

The car didn’t start.

“Fuck!” she yelled into the cold emptiness of the vehicle, her voice cracking from rage, “Or course you would do this you _asshole!_ ”

Violet held the wheel in a death grip, as if trying to strangle the car awake. She slammed her head against the wheel and kept it there closing her eyes, as if she was bowed in prayer. Violet didn’t believe in God. Violet regarded her parents as failures in many areas, but they succeeded in polluting the pure image of religion she had held in her mind as a kid. Yet on days like this, she was certain that some superior being was out there. One that hated her. One that wanted to condemn her to Hell a lifetime too early. It was all becoming too much.

The dam she had crafted over the past few months that sealed in the violent waves of her anger, that internalized every painful thought, was shaking to the core. Each small crack in the concrete of her head had spread to the point where each individual crevice began to connect. She simply didn’t want to feel hollow, yet filled with grief every waking moment.. She simply-

“Hey, lady?”

In an instant, that voice, thick with worry, snapped Violet out of her cocoon of self-pity.  She raised her slowly, a slight red indent on her pail skin where the wheel had been pressed against her forehead, then turned to face the source of the voice, her green eyes.

“You feelin’ alright? Heard ya yellin’ was all,” asked the man.

Or at least Violet thought he was a man. Even from her sitting position she could see he was at least 6 foot 5, but thin, his brown leather jacket drowning him. Yet, the guy also had a pretty goofy voice, like the lazy comic relief character in one of those God-awful action movies Hollywood shits out, and he looked young and fresh, with only the faintest amount of hair beginning to grow on his face. A genuine smile was set on his face, yet his eyebrows drooped slightly with concern as he expectantly awaited an answer.

“Yeah, I’m... I’m fine dude.”

“You sure? You don’t look fine. You look sad. Anything I can help you with?” he asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth so quickly Violet could barely process them.

A sigh escaped her lips. The guy emanated a friendly, relaxing aura, even in the context of this… _less than stellar_ morning. He seemed so innocently concerned for this random stranger he stumbled across.  Maybe she could confide in him a _little_ , if only a little.

“It’s my car. Worthless piece of crap won’t start, as per fucking usual, and I need to get to college, and I slept shit again ‘cause of this Goddamn dream I keep having ever since my girlfriend left me! It’s just one thing after the other and it has been for months!”

Well, shit. She only intended to tell him her car wasn’t working.

The stranger looked confused for a moment as he stared down at Violet, as if she had just spoken another language. She could almost hear the gears turning in his head as he deciphered Violet’s short rant.

_He isn’t very bright, is he? The girlfriend part confused him, most likely._

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense! Well ma’am, it’s your lucky day! I can fix your problem easy,” he said.

“You’re some kind of couples’ therapist?”

“What? No, not with your girlfriend. Sorry about that, by the way. Your car! I’m a mechanic. Well... I ain’t really. I just drive the truck. I work for my dad. He repairs boats most of the time, but he can fix cars too. Gimme 5 minutes and I’ll tow you to the garage.”

This goofy beanpole in ratty overalls and a weather-worn leather jacket might as well have been an angel descending in divine robes of white. Violet was briefly shocked, as if having such an accessible and simple solution to a situation that was moments ago igniting an apocalypse in her brain was just too good to be true. That such a pure act of kindness in this dank, shithole of a city was as astonishing as finding 10 bucks in the pocket of a pair of jeans you hadn’t worn in weeks.

Realising she was staring blankly at this man in response to his offer, heat rose to her cheeks she hastily replied.

“I mean… I wouldn’t wanna impose, man…”

“Oh! You won’t be imposing, now. I’ll still charge you.”

Violet chuckled, feeling some colour seep into the monochrome portrait of her morning. A modicum of normality.

“Yeah, alright then.”

 

**08:12 – Monday – October 8 th 2018**

“As in... the bird duck? That swims and shit?” Violet asked.

“Yeah!”

Her eyes squinted in confusion, yet mirth was evident in the form of a small smile lighting her features.

“And… why exactly?”

“You ever heard someone say ‘like water off a duck’s back’”?

“No.”

“Me neither! Yet dad says it means you don’t let nothing affect you, or get you down.”

Violet watched the streets travel by as Duck’s tow truck coursed through the city’s morning traffic. The passenger seat was constructed from old, brown leather that was much more comfortable that any of the shitty furniture that Violet had back at her apartment. She relaxed against the chair as the two teens listened to some corny country music station ebbed from the radio that Violet would never admit she was enjoying. She had spent the last ten minutes talking nonsense with the strange character beside her, ‘Duck’, as he claimed was his name. He held an air of friendliness that Violet struggled to ignore.

“So, the implication being that nothing ever pisses you off?” asked Violet.

“Well, yeah, I think so.”

“…and you parents knew this about you in infancy?”

The guy- Duck- laughed.

“It ain't my birth name, goddammit.”

“So...?”

“Kenny Jr.” said Duck, scrunching his face in mild distaste, “I like Duck more, I think. Kenny doesn’t really suit me.”

Violet agreed, yet internally.

“Hell, don’t tell your old man that. You’ll break his poor, aquatic bird loving heart.”

Duck laughed again. It sounded like an old mariner hearing a crude joke. Unabashed and unafraid. Violet was jealous.

“Don’t worry.” He smiled. “He ain’t got one.”

Violet just smiled in response, continuing to watch the streets drift past in calm silence, the flickering footpath and the people moving at walking speed yet gone in an instant. She became concerned with how unconcerned she currently was, with her car heavily damaged and in need of repairs, which would almost certainly break her bank with the minimal cash she earned babysitting, and the fact that she was sitting in the passenger seat with a stranger making idle conversation that didn’t somehow didn’t bore the hell out of her. Instead of anxiety or unease she simply felt content and slightly less lonely.

“Ah, here it is. The greatest garage in Ericson's,” Duck said.

Violet smirked. “Not much competition, is there?”

Duck shifted his eyes to her with an indignant look. “There’s that Badger Mechanics fella near the edge of town.”

“That guy on the news for stealing break parts?”

“Well, yeah, but that kind of proves me right, don’t it?”

The truck rolled up to the garage, a rusted and dented sign proclaiming the place as Floridian Repairs. It lay against the pier, cold sea framing the building. There was a girl in overalls leaning against the outside walls taking a smoke break, but Violet didn’t get a great view of her before Duck put the truck into park. With the flick of a switch he unconnected Violet’s Ford. She cracked open the door. The place stank of grease and oil, with only one other car, more precisely a Defender jeep with patchy army green paint, currently under repairs. A typical garage. Perhaps slightly less organised than the typical garage.

“I suppose you’re from Maine, then?” Violet asked the lanky boy over the hood of the truck as she exited the vehicle.

“What gave it away?”

Violet dragged her eyes across the garage as she propped her back against the cold stone wall.

“You don’t sound like you’re from Florida.”

“We moved when I was young. I don’t remember it awfully clear, just some traces of fishing trips here and there. As far as I can tell, we were pretty happy there.”

Violet’s curiosity swelled slightly at the implication, yet she didn’t see it fit to pry if her new friend didn’t see it fit to elaborate.

_He isn’t your friend. He’s selling a service. He wants your money. He’s humouring you, out of a decency you lack. Don’t-_

“I’m gonna go get dad. He’ll get it checked out for ya. You want some coffee for the wait?”

Violet gave a strained grin.

“Garage coffee? How shitty is it, honest?”

A few moments of silence.

“It’s pretty shit.”

Violet chuckled.

“Well, caffeine is caffeine. I’ll take some free coffee, seeing as how you’re offering.”

“How do you take-"

“BOY!”

Violet jumped slightly at the gruff yell, and watched as a look of irritation took Duck’s face.

“Ah, Jesus. Here it comes.”

“God dammit boy. How many times do I gotta tell ya, Duck? Give me a call before you haul a car here. It takes a work to fix these things, you know? You can’t just drop a fucking vehicle on me,” the man said. He looked far more Floridian than his boy, with his thick horseshoe moustache and dark hair spilling out from behind his cap. His accent was southern, shoulders broad as he stood slightly shorter than his son, yet still a bull of a man.

“She needed help, Dad.”

“That doesn’t excuse you not calling. A little heads up was all that was needed. All it takes is a girl to knock the little sense you have outta your head.”

“It ain’t like that,” Duck said.

“Just make yourself useful and get that thing in the garage. Tell Clem her God damn smoke break’s over.”

Duck just nodded in a half-hearted manner, quite unconcerned with his father’s agitated rant. As was Violet. He growled like a grizzly and his cheekbones were tightened in a sneer, yet his eyes betrayed him. Violet knew a sad man when she saw one. She had stared into brown eyes snuffed with the same smoke before. Many times before. This man didn’t hold the same cruelty in the way he stood or spoke or breathed, however.

“Look, man,” Violet said, “If this is too much hassle, I’ll call someplace else. It’s no problem.”

“Who would you call? Unless you got bail money and no use for brakes, there’s no one else in town.” The man took a deep breath and wiped away the sweat from his brow, replacing it with grease. “Sorry, I ain't usually this much of an ass.”

“Huh?” Duck sounded from inside the garage. The man glared at him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Violet said.

“Boy’s got no brains is all. I had this old Rottweiler when I was a kid. The old man gave it to mom as a birthday gift, but she said it was too ugly, so it was given to me as an early Christmas present.”

“Generous,” Violet commented.

“Point is, it was easier trained than the God damned boy.”

Violet laughed at that.

“Kenny isn’t it?”

“You asked the boy about his name?”

Violet just grinned. Kenny held out his hand.

“Violet,” she said. 

“Nice to meet you. Look, I gotta get back to that Defender. Talk to Clem and she’ll give you the run down on the clanker.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Kenny strode over towards the primary area of the garage, leaving Violet standing there, considering the odd people she had just met. They were probably even more odd than her. She wondered if this ‘Clem’ character was just as odd.

She shuffled toward the bay where her car was raised up, and studied the overall coated back of the woman who was analysing her shitty car. Violet noted the cigarette bud on the dirt, the cap on the woman’s head, the jet-black velvet curls tied into an odd ponytail hanging from underneath. She mustered all the self-will that an apathetic, lonely, teenage lesbian possibly could to avoid examining the girls behind. But she did notice, and internally commented on it.

She walked up beside the woman, her cheeks a little red and her eyes at the car rather than the girl.

“So, what’s it like? You know the, uh, extent of the a-, damage.”

The girl glanced sideways and Violet was caught in eyes of bright amber. She barely even registered her round cheeks, spotless dark skin, plump lips, and the strands of hair hanging over her forehead. It was as if she was hypnotized by the flickering of a fire on a cold evening. An angel in overalls.

“Hey there,” the girl said, tone soft like a Virginia songbird, and smile softer still, “I’m Clementine.”

Violet swallowed all the saliva that had gathered, and prayed the little time she spent outside had tanned her skin bronze enough that it wouldn’t be so damn obvious she was blushing, like Minnie always claimed was the case. She had called it cute. Violet found herself hoping Clementine would, too.

“Uh, hi. Name’s Violet.”

“Huh. Real pretty name.”

Violet could feel the blood pulsing in her face so violently, she was honestly afraid that this girl had killed her.

_At least say something, you idiot._

“Not as pretty as yours.”

_Yeah, great._

Yet it got a chuckle from Clementine. Brief and sly, yet it was quite the reward for Violet’s shitty compliment. She wanted to hear more.

“I was being polite. _You_ are using flattery as a weapon.”

Violet cleared her throat and fluttered her eyes.

“ _Hey beautiful. Free repairs would be nice,”_ she said with a southern drawl that to her ears was laughably unsexy. Clementine laughed, a full laugh this time. Her eyes crinkled as she did, and Violet didn’t intend to forget that face.

“You’ve met Kenny, haven’t you? Imagine that face when I tell him I was seduced into handing out a free repair. It would be the last thing I’d see.”

The air was sickly with oil, it was like poison, but through it Violet inhaled the paradoxically fresh and suffocating smell of Menthol cigarettes that Clementine exhaled. She was caught in the moment.

“Dispensing with the flirting, in terms of the Ford, your starter motor is janked.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Violet said cautiously. She was devoid of any knowledge pertaining to cars. Yet she was fully aware that repairs are never cheap.

“What gave it away? The fact the car doesn’t start?” Clementine said with a smirk.

“Mechanic by day, comedian by night.”

“It isn’t good, but it isn’t catastrophic and it can be fixed with relative ease.”

“Yeah? How much is it gonna set me back?”

Clementine lifted her cap from her head, dragging a hand through her hair, before placing the cap back on.

“Are you a student?” Clementine asked. Violet narrowed her eyes at the subject change.

“Um, yeah.”

“What are you studying?”

“Psychology.”

“Oh, that’s awesome. I take it you started this term?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Not intending to offend, but with a car like- “Clementine motioned to the car, “I would have seen you more often otherwise. Anyways, you got a job?”

“Uh, no. Not at the moment. Why?”

Clementine turned for a moment and placed her hands on her hips. She focused upon the floor, seemingly lost within internal debate.

“Are you ok?” Violet asked.

“Tell you what. Your seduction tactics worked on me. I’m weaker willed than I thought, apparently. It’s on the house.”

Violet was taken aback.

“What? No, I couldn’t take that- “

“Yeah, you could. Look, I’ve got a stable job here, and I get payed more than I really deserve. I blow it all on cigarettes and wine, anyway.” She laughed. “You’re a student. I know how hard that is financially, especially without any work.”

“Clementine, I really can’t let you do that.”  

“Honestly, it’s fine. It’s one of the easier and cheaper things to repair.”

“Cle- “

“I won’t take no for an answer here.”

Her tone was firm, but a steady grin on her lips. 

 _Those eyes_ , Violet thought.


End file.
